Europe's sweet tooth helps keep the
Caribbeansugarcane industry alive. In
Barbados50,000 tons of raw sugar
(above) await shipment to assured markets
in the EuropeanEconomic Community.
Elsewhere, in Guadeloupe and Martinique
growers receive subsidiesfrom the home
government in France,while Cubans have
reportedly enjoyed guaranteedprices from
the Soviet Unionfor years. Left strictly to
the mercy of world-market prices, many
producers of the region's single most
importantcrop might fail, since they still
rely heavily on labor-intensive,back
breakingmethods for cutting and hauling
cane (above right).
260
the most promising economies in the Carib
bean. By 1980 it had a national debt of 1.4
billion dollars that it could barely service, let
alone pay back. Inflation had tripled in a
decade, and 30 percent of the work force was
unemployed.
Oil costs bit into Jamaica's foreign ex
change just as they did elsewhere, but the
nation counted on bauxite, the reddish earth
that is the principal source of aluminum, to
rescue the economy. In 1974 the island gov
ernment increased taxes on foreign-owned
aluminum companies that process it. The
companies responded by trimming produc
tion, while the income from the tax was
quickly spent on programs for the poor.
The man responsible for both levy and
National Geographic,February1981